Skuit

Two players out with 'illness' is a concern. If it is 'illness'. Hope the rest of the squad is fighting fit.

Please tell me he's wearing the number 20 jumper . . . though it would be way more fun if he'd sprayed it.

I applied this rolling logic in a simple win-loss fashion through the Ladder Predictor - teams beat those on the ladder below them progressively for the remainder of the season and the Dees make the 8 on 13 wins ahead of Adelaide on 11. Simple.

Over 90% of voting is now for between an expected 3-6 list changes. This link may be enlightening, with the mean average of turn-around last year somewhere around 11.5. http://www.afl.com.au/news/review-2015/retirements-and-delistings There are genuine reasons why we may have a smaller turn-around this year - a lack of veterans at retirement age, opting out of the first draft round, Melksham to come on board, and, of course, a sizeable group of young, developing talent still new to the list - which will then impact the need to retain some experience as well. The Doggies delisted seven last year and traded out one. Do we see ourselves at a comparable stage of development?

I don't wish to be a stick in the mud, but can someone change the thread title?

Two down, one JH to go. Congrats to James. I think his ceiling may be somewhat underrated on here,

Foucauldian footy analysis. You may have found a niche there Bush. Wonder what Michel would have made of the spatially-transgressive Demons' Diamond?

Regardless. I suspect we'll soon find out this is the case. Interesting to see if he lines up for Casey.

Shall we move on to 'in the back'? Same issues apply. The rule seems to have evolved from what I imagine was originally intended to outlaw shove-outs to now protect the carrier from being dangerously driven forward into the ground without protection. Yet, players consistently drop their knees the second they can feel a somewhat uncontrolled tackle from directly behind. Drives me nuts. But impossible to adjudicate unless there's a tweak in the interpretation.

This is exactly how I imagine Picket at 6.25pm on Thursdays.

I don't think it's a matter of currently naming such players. That's for the delist thread. I understand it's an unfamiliar position for us to think in terms of not simply cutting from the bottom and trading out non-performing players but you're constantly looking to upgrade on the list by averages. We may well trade out performing players and players with potential to gain an overall slight upgrade. Then, with list depth, there are the decent players who might seek opportunity elsewhere - another unfamiliar position. There is also the issue of long-term cap management - where we move investment from one area of the field to another e.g. sacrifice a Watts for a Prestia, where we feel we can get a better return on the spread (probably somewhat like those fantasy football games). Oddly, this may see us keep players without market value like JKH ahead of others we wouldn't expect.

The lowest number of list changes from last season were Hawthorn and Sydney. With 8 each. The year before that was Freo and West Coast with 6. Sure, we have a lot of potential talent developing but I'm not sure why people think we're suddenly in some position to sit pretty and make a mere 3-5 changes?

Always smiling. Like a staffy. Meanwhile, Hogan always seems to be partially distracted, as if working out some troubling mathematical equation in his head . . .

I don't disagree with anything you've said here Gonzo. But the question then is is this a sustainable finals-proof system? And is it readily reversible/adaptable? As in, are we potentially teaching our players bad habits and trading/drafting with a game-plan in mind which may come unstuck (such as the Bailey-ball era - which, incidentally, was something of a mirror to the Roos approach but never reached an assessable conclusion due to a possibly premature abort. And one that left us in a world of trouble)?

What would Hawthorn do? The caveat is the injury. The context is the cap. Otherwise, there should be no question concerning the list quality or needs-based recruitment. The game is built from the middle. Prestia would be in our top four mids now and for the next five years. Anyone outside that bracket is trade fodder.

I would be super mighty surprised if we have a list turnover of less than six at season's end.

There is nothing in that post that eliminates you from actually being Bernie in disguise.

Believe me, it is. The MRP acts as the prosecution in the sense of your first example (proposing an agreed deal outside of the judiciary) but if the case is challenged on appeal they then revert to an ordinary prosecutorial role before a panel of judges. As far as I understand. Anyways, I'm against the system of discounts. But I don't have any suggestions to fix it. Maybe not even mention discounts in the initial offer and clubs can risk a proper judiciary potentially determining a greater punishment (a la an appellent court)?

Garnish suggests some sort of extraneous flourish on top. This is more like deciding between a soup or dessert spoon to eat your weetbix with.

They are given a chance to respond to the charge. By conceding guilt or challenging the verdict. It's the same principle that operates in the adversarial criminal justice system whereby an accused pleading guilty receives a discount on sentencing. To me, it's utter shite - someone is culpable or not. But whereas the criminal justice system probably operates this way on some archaic Abrahamic notion of confession/repentance, the $$$ AFL's MRP does it avoid extra scrutiny/save cash.

I hadn't noticed this feature before - a package of all the VFL goals for the round. For those like me that hadn't seen a scrap of Weed or Hullet. http://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/2016-05-16/rd-6-vfl-all-the-goals

It's actually a pertinent discussion in this thread. Whereas we were previously forcing teams wider and out of position in defence - notable in the high inaccuracy against - we're now I think the highest team scored against as a percentage of inside 50s. How many goals have we given up from the goal-square or thereabouts this year? And it leads back to the King on Goodwin game-plan thing. I find it difficult to imagine Roos would be happy to implement such a radically contrary high-risk attacking tactic at the behest of Goody alone and after two years of pushing dour defence and seemingly sideways chipping. The MFC has gone the quiet tank, masked by perceptions of Paul Roos. He stemmed the bleeding - blowouts, memberships, culture - acquired the cattle (inc. Goodwin), and flicked the switch.

A similar thing to the last year or so when we were constantly 'lucky' by way of opposition inaccuracy.

The numbers don't seem quite right as a risk v reward calculation. It begins with a even contest in the middle. We clearly lose that and end up with a 50% disadvantage in defence. We clearly win the initial contest and go forward to an even contest. If the initial contest is split we get an additional 27ish% advantage in the next immediate contest to again go forward to an even contest while the 50% disadvantage remains in defence. Things to note: My maths is terrible. Football doesn't necessarily work like that. 9v7 in the middle and 4v6 up forward have different ramifications when spatial elements are factored in. We clearly believe that the initial contest is not even and we have the starting advantage - but then, wouldn't the overall rewards be greater if we pressed this advantage alone? But: This is probably why we're seeing a lot of attacking handball chains through the middle. We have the numbers but not the space. These chains are especially high risk in this scenario as the turnover is immediately to opposition advantage. Our hand-balling execution was notably down on the weekend (even half our goals came at the end of sloppy chains). It's the kicking forward to an even contest which is the biggest problem in this equation. The % gain in the middle might win the middle but the disadvantage in defence persists should we lose the next even contest - i.e. teams consistently having ample space and numbers out the back when earning possession off half-back. Clearly, we're looking to counter this by splitting the forward contest and pressing the numbers' advantage up to the next line. Conclusions: This apparent tactic goes a long way to explaining certain things going on at the selection/trade tables. Expect to see Dawes come in soon with his expertise at bringing the ball to ground (aka dropping marks). It's possibly not an issue of Dunn not getting it but perhaps an attitude/frustration problem as an old fashioned defender being constantly outnumbered in defence when you would normally hold yourself to certain levels of accountability for scores against.